SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
Every Smurf is named after whatever they’re known for. No Name Smurf (voiced by James Corden) is tired of not having found “his thing” yet and approaches Papa Smurf (John Goodman) on what he needs to do in order to earn a name. Encouraged by Smurfette (Rihanna), No Name heads into the forest and finds he has magical powers. He brings this newly found skill to the Smurf community and he accidentally opens a portal to the evil Razamel’s lair. Papa Smurf is immediately beamed up and the rest of the Smurfs have no choice but to go after their elder statesman. In an effort to save him, No Name opens a second portal, this one taking them to Paris, France, where they’re saved from the humans by Moxie Smurf (Sandra Oh) and the rest of the International Neighborhood Watch Smurfs. They get introduced to Ken (Nick Offerman) and the group heads out to try and locate, and save, Papa Smurf from evil brothers Razamel and Gargamel.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
It’s almost impossible not to compare 2025’s SMURFS to 2016’s TROLLS. Both open with an origin story about a book, both kick things off with a DJ-led party scene and both end with a big pop anthem sung by the musical superstar attached to the lead character. (I’m sure there are other examples but that’d be using too much brain power on this movie to come up with.)
When the best part of the movie is the short film beforehand (Spongebob’s ORDER UP), it’s not a good sign.
Rihanna is on the movie poster and featured in the trailers but, really, the lead is Corden and he carries this movie as best he can. Rihanna may have the name recognition to get people to buy tickets but she’s just not a dynamic voice actor and, as a result, she’s pretty forgettable in this. There’s zero question the studio needed a huge name to throw out in a desperate attempt to sell tickets and, once she was attached, they marketed the crap out of her.
Paramount should’ve spent more time coming up with a decent script with better developed characters then just relying on a future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer to create a pop anthem and plaster their name all over a movie poster.
Believe it or not, there actually are some positives in SMURFS, they’re just few and far between one-off’s. The animation is great, it wasn’t shot in “ADHD mode” like a lot of animated films are now, the “dime in 1986” joke is hilarious, the anime-universe version is a nice touch, the Johnny Mathis mention is random and Sound Effects Smurf is a solid idea (but missed opportunity to cast Michael Winslow as the voice).
SMURFS wants to be TROLLS so badly but misses the mark completely, is envious of the sheer quality of its voice cast and lacks the amount of ear worms on its soundtrack, all while forgetting to be entertaining. What did I learn by watching SMURFS? I learned that Everything Goes With Blue except the word “fun.”
JKG SCORE: 4.0
Untitled Film Project 